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American monetary policy is formulated by the Federal Reserve and overseen by Congress. Both policy making and oversight are deliberative processes, although the effect of this deliberation has been difficult to quantify. This book provides a systematic examination of deliberation on monetary policy from 1976 to 2008 by the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) and House and Senate banking committees. The innovative account employs automated textual analysis software to study the verbatim transcripts of FOMC meetings and congressional hearings; these empirical data are supplemented and supported by in-depth interviews with participants in these deliberations. The automated textual analysis measures the characteristic words, phrases, and arguments of committee members; the interviews offer a way to gauge the extent to which the empirical findings accord with the participants’ personal experiences. Decade after decade, Fed chairman after Fed chairman, one feature is evident in the discourse between central bankers and US legislators: Fed chairmen tend to talk about the technicalities of monetary policy while senators and representatives talk about other things, such as jobs, fiscal policy, energy policy, education, and so on. All too often they simply talk past one another. Analyzing why and under what conditions deliberation matters for monetary policy in the FOMC, the book identifies several strategies of persuasion used by committee members, including Paul Volcker’s emphasis on policy credibility and efforts to influence economic expectations.

This volume focuses on postmodern film aesthetics, thinking through ways in which it challenges the aesthetic paradigms currently dominating analyses of Hollywood cinema. The first chapter explores conceptions of the classical, modernist, post-classical/new Hollywood, and their construction as a linear history of style in which postmodernism forms a debatable final act. This history is challenged by using Jean-François Lyotard’s non-linear conception of postmodernism in order to view postmodern aesthetics as a paradigm that can occur across the history of Hollywood. Chapter 2 explores famous 'nihilistic' theorists of the postmodern, Jean Baudrillard and Frederic Jameson, addressing the ways in which their work impacts on reading Hollywood films. Within Film Studies, writing on postmodernism and Hollywood cinema has drawn on the more negative aspects of Jameson’s work. Postmodern films are seen as expressions of the logic of late capitalism, and thus incapable of offering political critique, while their relentless utilisation of past styles is reflective of aesthetic bankruptcy. In contrast, the final chapter argues in favor of taking up the work of 'affirmative' postmodern theorists, notably Linda Hutcheon, in order to set up nuanced and positive variants of postmodern film aesthetics. For Hutcheon, postmodern art is characterized by paradox, due to its simultaneous re-inscription and deconstruction of past art forms. This doubled movement of both evoking and dismantling convention underpins its political potential, namely the de-naturalisation of a history of representation. The range, diversity and critical potential of postmodern aesthetic strategies are demonstrated by detailed readings of four film texts.

Suburbia. Say the word and a stream of images pass before your eyes: white picket fence, neatly mowed lawns, winding roads nicely lined with trees, pastel tinted bungalows, bored housewives, conspicuous consumption. We all know what the suburbs are about. Or do we? This book looks again at the filmic and televised spaces we think we know so well. How are these spaces built up? What is it that makes us recognize them as suburbs? How do they function? Exploring the hometowns of amongst others Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons, Pleasantville and Brick, Scenes from the Suburbs examines what it means to be suburban today.